...esteemed painter, poet, and composer. An English visitor recalled attending an opera in 1644 where Bernini "painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the engines, composed the music, wrote the comedy and built the theater." Il they had had popcorn, Bernini would have popped and buttered...

...Evelyn, bore witness to Bernini's versatile theatrical gifts. For a "public opera" Evelyn saw, Bernini "painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the...composed the music, writ the comedy and built the theatre all himself." Nothing is otherwise known about Bernini the musician, but he clearly knew all the ways...

...Often quoted was the awed response of John Evelyn after seeing an opera in Rome "wherein [Bernini) painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the...music, writ the comedy, and built the theatre."'" Bernini's successors mined his work for ideas, but they also found patrons willing to follow Algardi's...

...visit to Rome in 1644 noted with astonishment in his Diary that Bernini had staged an opera for which he "painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented...composed the music, writ the comedy, and built the theater all himself." Bernini was also (unlike his neurotic contemporary Borromini) polished and self-assured...

...sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, a little before my coming to Rome, gave a public opera, wherein he painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the...the music, writ the comedy, and built the theatre." "There is nothing in war," said Napoleon, "which I cannot do by my own hands. If there is nobody to...